Proximity Marketing to international Tourist’s at Shakespeare’s Globe

Background

Shakespeare’s Globe is a truly iconic, beautiful part of British history. However, competition for tourism in London is high, with seemingly more than ever before to do and see. So how did we manage to increase ticket sales for The Globe?

We used two key consumer insights to propel our selection of marketing technology and build a marketing campaign;

Close proximity to Shakespeare's Globe was important.

Competition for Tourists is extremely high in London, with something new popping up every day. How then to significantly increase sales? Even harder, how to do so on a tight budget? We needed to top of mind for tourists during decision-making times whilst in London.

Using advanced GPS and other geo-targeting techniques and programmatic buying, Digital Willow pinpointed advertising messages to mobile phones near Bankside and the competition, e.g. those passing tourist attractions, such as London Eye, Big Ben or Tower of London. They geo-fenced a 1 x 1 m radius around these pinpoints for the campaign.

Then we thought about how we could recognise if a customer was a tourist. Idea: their international mobile phones and operating systems! Genius. Using various technology partners, we avoided wasting marketing pounds on people not in London for a holiday.

As a later optimisation in the campaign, we even went as far as plotting London Hotels and marketing messages to those logging into the Wi-Fi either early morning or late evening when they were presumably planning their holiday activities.

Result

Digital Willow delivered a click-through rate (CTR) of 1.08%, 4 times higher than the industry average CTR of 0.28% on mobile devices* (Sizmek data 2015). The click to conversion rate was an incredible 33.8%

Shakespeare's Globe saw an unprecedented ticket sales increase of 30%+ year on year.

Shakespeare's Globe has also requested that we repeat the campaign for a second year, this time for a longer period and with a greater budget.

About Us

At Digital Willow, we work as an extension of your marketing team. Like this campaign, we can specialise in NFC, SMS marketing, Beacon & hyper-local, GSP targeting. This can be with or without digital outdoor companion advertising (like bus stops). We customise the solution to client’s brief.